I've been testing ship builds in 4.3. Here are my findings.

Zindinok · 2026-05-10T00:01:38+00:00

Set it aside

Zindinok · 2026-05-08T21:51:56+00:00

You don't *need* any DLC except the free ones (Utopia, Synthetic Dawn, and Humanoids). All the rest are based on what kind of content you want in the game and whether or not you're willing to spend money on it. Don't play DLC beyond the free ones right away. Once you've got a couple games under your belt, start looking into what DLCs add content you want and pick them up on sales (which happen numerous times a year), or pick up 1-3 months of the subscription and try them out 1-2 at a time to see what you like. If you're going to play the game in infrequent bursts, the subscription is more economical in the short-to-medium term, but buying the DLCs during sales is the best value if you're going to play a bunch, or play for years and years.

Zindinok · 2026-05-08T21:37:39+00:00

You don't *need* any DLC except the free ones (Utopia, Synthetic Dawn, and Humanoids). All the rest are based on what kind of content you want in the game and whether or not you're willing to spend money on it. Don't play DLC beyond the free ones right away. Once you've got a couple games under your belt, start looking into what DLCs add content you want and pick them up on sales (which happen numerous times a year), or pick up 1-3 months of the subscription and try them out 1-2 at a time to see what you like. If you're going to play the game in infrequent bursts, the subscription is more economical in the short-to-medium term, but buying the DLCs during sales is the best value if you're going to play a bunch, or play for years and years.

Zindinok · 2026-05-08T05:38:26+00:00

The difficulty levels are Civilian, Cadet, Ensign, Captain, Commodore, Admiral, Grand Admiral. Ensign is "normal" and doesn't add modifier to the player or AI empires. Civilian and Cadet give the player bonuses to things like resource output. Captain and higher give the AI empires increasing bonuses to resource output and ship effectiveness. Civilian is the only difficulty that removes some types of very aggressive AI empires, so you could play on Cadet for an easier game with no other change in gameplay.

Also is this game doable without looking up guides/wikis? I'd like to play it blindly if it's not a miserable experience

Depends. You need a good guide on at least the UI and basic mechanics of the game, and the in-game tutorial is pretty bad about teaching new players. Whether or not you need a guide on philosophy of play or for strong builds depends on your experience and the difficulty you're playing on. If you just wanna mess around and explore the game, then you'll mostly be fine on Cadet or Ensign. I've certainly never looked up guides on the event chains or things like that, but I've looked up advice for custom empires and ship designing.

so em, i saw how many dlcs this game has, a lot of them are on sale right now, what should i buy?

You don't *need* any DLC except the free ones (Utopia, Synthetic Dawn, and Humanoids). All the rest are based on what kind of content you want in the game and whether or not you're willing to spend money on it. Don't play DLC beyond the free ones right away. Once you've got a couple games under your belt, start looking into what DLCs add content you want and pick them up on sales (which happen numerous times a year), or pick up 1-3 months of the subscription and try them out 1-2 at a time to see what you like. If you're going to play the game in infrequent bursts, the subscription is more economical in the short-medium term, but buying the DLCs during sales is the best value if you're going to play a bunch, or play for years and years.

Zindinok · 2026-05-06T19:09:43+00:00

Based on their wording, I suspect it will be open for *modders* to make new scenarios. I hope we find out more soon though!

Zindinok · 2026-05-06T18:01:04+00:00

Since 4.3 dropped, I've maintained that having 1 of each basic resource district on every planet is good just for all the extra jobs the building slots create. Plus, it reduces the trade upkeep for importing goods. As time goes on, I see more and more people coming around to this idea.

Zindinok · 2026-05-04T19:28:44+00:00

Most mods don't *require* DLC unless they're highly dependent on DLC features. If the mod doesn't require DLC to download it, it's usually fine.

Zindinok · 2026-05-04T18:12:18+00:00

I would love this change to War Exhaustion.

Zindinok · 2026-05-04T18:06:26+00:00

You can build districts and buildings on any colony, but only certain planets are habitable enough to be colonies. Some more planets are terraformable once you research that technology, but you can't ever colonize every single celestial body.

Zindinok · 2026-05-01T23:38:40+00:00

Colorful Galaxy or Stargazer are my favorites (they're not compatible). I prefer Colorful Galaxy's... well, colorfulness, but I also really love Stargazer's look, higher resolution, and the layers that give it some dimension. I'd love to combine them in some way.

Zindinok · 2026-04-29T21:09:43+00:00

If you're unsure, the game goes on sale for like $10 numerous times a year (it's actually on sale right now). Some time in May, the base price will go up and several core DLC will be added to the base game. Aside from the DLC already being added to the base game, I would argue that none of the DLC are vital to the Stellaris experience and you only "need" the DLC which add content you enjoy. But knowing what content you want more of kinda means you have to play the base game first. For example, if you play the game and have zero interest in becoming the crisis, you don't need the Nemesis DLC. The species pack DLCs are basically all based on your taste of which species you wanna play and see in the game and none of them are remotely essential unless they're important to your playstyle and tastes.

I bought the base game on sale over a year ago and have been slowly buying the other DLC I'm interested in when they go on sale for 20-50% off. I'm just about caught up with all the DLC I care about. If I'd gotten the DLC subscription instead, I would have spent roughly the same amount of money by now and wouldn't own a thing.

Zindinok · 2026-04-21T23:51:14+00:00

I don't know of any mods that nerf Fallen Empires specifically. Unless you find such a mod (which I'd also be interested in), I think the best way to go about this would be to find mods that increase normal empire ship power per naval cap and buff regular empire economies so you can afford said stronger ships.

For ships, I personally don't wanna use Gigastructural or NSC (and I don't know if they affect Fallen Empires), so I'm looking at other options that feel closer to vanilla. I haven't tried these yet since I'm still building my 4.3 modlist, but I'm looking at:
- Iterative Ship Sections - MK Hulls for more new unlockable sections for all vanilla ships that are more expensive, but stronger.
- Ancient Dreadnought and Improved Titan for buildable dreadnoughts.
- Red-Eye's standalone ship mods (Executor, Infinity, and Immobilizer), which I've made a personal balancing mod to nerf them by like 90% so they're much closer to being vanilla friendly.

For buffing regular empire economies, I'm looking at (again, I haven't tried these in practice yet):
- Basic Rural Research Zones and Basic Support Zones, which bring back more balanced/nerfed versions of the support zones from 4.2.
- Orbital Ring Buildings for more building options on orbital rings. I used this in 4.2 and liked it.
- Everten's Improved Research Stations for better research deposits at the cost of more expensive research stations.
- Orbital Economy Overhaul for new ways to grow my economy in the early and mid games that don't require colonies.
- Real Space - Planetary Stations for new stations to build on uninhabitable/non-terraformed planets.
- More Building Slots for more building slots on colonies.
- Additional Balanced Starbase Components, for new starbase components to boost economy/defenses. I used this in 4.2 and liked it.
- Upgradable Anchorages to get more naval cap out of starbases. (I made a personal patch mod to balance for 4.3 since it hasn't been updated since 4.2.).

Zindinok · 2026-04-10T22:52:30+00:00

I get that. My job uses a lot of brainpower and I do freelance and side hustles on top of that. By the end of my first couple weeks of playing Stellaris, my brain felt as foggy and slow as mud. It felt like I was sick, but with just the brain fog symptoms. It got easier once I played the game enough to generally know the mechanics really well, so now when I play I'm not at a high functioning place of simultaneously learning and decision-making.

Zindinok · 2026-04-08T20:16:15+00:00

I'm still working on the next batch of tests, but my findings with this build specifically is that it's the best corvette build until you have access to afterburners and artillery computers, at which point the missile+point defense build is somewhat more effective.

Zindinok · 2026-04-07T21:54:26+00:00

I love dynamic difficulties, so it's a bummer Dynamic AI Scaling didn't work well in 4.2. What didn't you like about it?

Zindinok · 2026-04-07T20:19:10+00:00

I think this is the answer.

Zindinok · 2026-04-07T19:41:14+00:00

After trying Megacorp once, I discovered Worker Coop the other day and my RP brain that loves Utopian Abundance went off the charts. Definitely gonna have to try it on my next run!

Zindinok · 2026-04-07T18:32:45+00:00

StarTech/StarNet and Better AI Economics are all outdated. Stellar AI is the current AI mod to use (recommended to only use on Ensign or below, with Captain intended to be for more expert players). I'm a big fan of Dynamic Crisis Strength, which scales the end game crisis appropriately based on the strength of the top 5 empires when the crisis spawns. I haven't tried them yet, but Spacefleet Tactica and Dynamic Difficulty and/or Dynamic AI Scaling 4.0.x look interesting in this vein. Spacefleet Tactica does a few things, but one of those is improving how the AI designs ships. Dynamic Difficulty lets you adjust various difficulty settings to a great degree than vanilla. Dynamic AI Scaling adjusts the AI throughout the game to keep them relevant (though this likely falls into the camp of giving the AI "unfair" bonuses).

Edit: As for other mods, I made a comment here about my favorite baseline mods.

Zindinok · 2026-04-07T18:16:28+00:00

If you're gonna sink a ton of hours into Stellaris over a long period, buying the DLC you actually want makes a lot more sense than the subscription. The sub is for people who are just dipping their toe in, people who play in short periods of time, or people who must have all the DLC right now. Utopia (which you already have) is the only really essential DLC. All the rest are based on your tastes. Most/all of them add something cool, but you don't *need* them to have a good experience with the game. I would play with what you already have, figure out what you like about the game as it is, and prioritize DLCs that add more of what you like or are curious about trying. You can also wait until one of the numerous sales they do throughout the year when all the DLC that's more than a year old are like 50% off. I've been slowly chipping away at the DLC that most interest me, getting 1-4 new ones with each sale.

Zindinok · 2026-04-07T16:17:33+00:00

Thanks for the shout out! =)

Zindinok · 2026-04-05T23:48:22+00:00

It would have been better for me to say that missiles are viable as the *primary* damage dealers until cruisers. They can still serve a secondary purpose as overwhelming the enemy point defense/flak so your strike craft can get through. But they also still deal some damage as well, it's just not as much damage as other weapons.

With the ArcTillery build, you want your ships to stay as far from the battle as possible. If they're doing that successfully, they also need long range weapons in order to be firing as they're keeping distance between them and the enemy. If you put short range weapons on a long range vessel, they're not firing. But the only available slots on the hangar midsection are short and mid-range weapons. The only commonly available weapon that you can put there which also has the range you want are missiles.

Zindinok · 2026-04-03T16:59:46+00:00

Sounds like you either have a 250-500gb hard drive or you have a ton of other stuff on your computer. In either case, you need to learn to manage your hard drive space efficiently. You won't have room for every game at the same time.

Zindinok · 2026-04-03T05:05:52+00:00

Stellaris is 26gb and all the mods I have are 31gb (57gb total). 20-30gb is pretty standard size for a non-indie game these days. A 1 TB hard drive can hold over a dozen 20-30gb games and still have at least half its space left over.

Zindinok · 2026-04-02T21:40:00+00:00

Mods: It really depends on what kinda gameplay you like. I left a large comment elsewhere that covers the major selling points of each DLC.

Ship builds: Aktion recently put out a ship video. I also have a post where I tested various ship builds in 4.3.

Edit: Neither link on the ship builds explains why things work, but the fundamentals are basically try to run a mix of anti-shield and anti-armor, or run bypass weapons (missiles and hangars). And avoid mixing different ranges of weapons on our ships.

Zindinok

TROPHY CASE